It's A Yucca Yak!!

Yucca is a staple in many South, Central and Native North American cultures. I used mainly the brown outside to make this yak, but the inside (you can see a little on his nose, eyes and ears) is white, much like potato. To help picky eaters learn about yucca, you could start at the grocery store and find the long brown root in the produce section. If you want to take one home to explore, touch and taste, here are some great ideas for how to prepare it, so you can get the full experience!The texture is a bit different that potatoes, but it can be a great way to try something new to make some yucca fries or mashed yucca as a different side. If you're scoffing at this exotic root, thinking, my kid won't even eat mashed potatoes, then potatoes can be a great place to start.You can play with yucca in the same ways you would play with potato. You could make building sticks out of yucca fries, or build a mashed yucca mountain.Language and Senses:Talk about how it looks smells and feels. If your kids are really familiar with potatoes you could compare them. The mashed yucca may feel thicker than mashed potatoes or maybe the yucca sticks feel grainier in your mouth or as you break them in your hands than potato fries do.Try to describe the new food like you're really excited about it. Like it's an adventure to find out all these cool characteristics of this new food, like it's the coolest thing you'll see or do all week. Even if your child refuses to touch it, they'll still remember the positive experience of you being excited about this new food and that's a valuable learning experience, too!The Yucca Yak is also part of the Animal Alphabet e-book which you can get for FREE by signing up here for the free resource library! However you choose to play this week, enjoy, and happy food play!